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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2002)
[E BATTALiOi s also tier's outh African IV muppet educational •resented at zheimer’s Disc: i that peoples es of developi kkI pressure, i Kivipelto offt. aland, examine; high cholesteti ned to be ntil of developii gene variation. ? high blood pres ily in later connected tier’s, ce high e can be con-1 we may hate to its cast of muppets. xi something pe fAlthough her character is yet do to lower thelto have a name or form, cre- of developEMtors have decided to intro- ler’s,” said ThieJuce a young female orphan is not connectlmuppet with high self-esteem. ccording to CNN.com. the eators of the South African ucational children’s show el “women are often stigma- zed about HIV.” By introduc- ig this character the creators mt taking chokvleel they are offering a good n September of this year, the South African version of “Sesame Street,” called hakalani Street,” will intro- luce an HIV-positive character ■ research, e studies to k| :d at the confet- ic largest gathe;- r of Alzheimen icrs, bolster evi- :e the chances of reen at Boston ound that people statins reduced tier’s by 79 per- the largest study and the first to people, who are to develop ;s of cholesterol- were not linked ry [ole model for viewers on how Jo deal with the disease within meir communities. Every day, Ihildren’s friends on “Sesame treet” teach new lessons to lelp prepare young viewers for adult life. For the small children of South Africa, HIV and AIDS is about to become part of their first education. Unfortunately, there are no plans for a similar character to be introduced in the United States, but creators at “Sesame Street Workshop” should look into doing so. “Takalani Sesame” is aimed at children ages 3 to 7 years old, so messages deliv ered by the new character will be “appropriate ” said Joel Schneider, vice president and senior adviser to “Sesame Street Workshop” in a CNN.com online article. The •show will not mention how ^disease is contracted but wi// focus more on an HIV- positive member whom every one can interact with without being afraid. Approximately 4.7 million iouth Africans — a one-in- line ratio — are HIV-positive, ccording to the U.S. State Apartment. Forty percent of vomen of childbearing age we included in that statistic, reating a fast growing num- >er of children born with HIV. This situation is terribly dev iating and “Takalani sesame” is a giant step owards alleviating the prob- em. Education is the key to cur- ng the AIDS epidemic in the world today. It is an issue that will not simply go away, espe cially in South Africa. The disease is part of everyday life here. Children are affected by and have to deal with this sad fact. By creatively introducing HIV and AIDS into children’s hwes through friendly mup- Pets, the reality of the disease m ay not seem so scary. The muppets are non- threatening to children, so controversial messages can be Portrayed in a way to help Opinion The Battalion Page 9* Thursday July JAMIE DUFF stimulate discussion amongst parents and children. Further information and ways of teaching children more about HIV and AIDS will be avail able to parents for discussion in the home. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in the United States there were 6,928 reported cases of AIDS in children under five years of age in June 2001. Like chil dren in South Africa, these kids have to deal with a fatal disease and the cruelty of their peers. Parents are encouraged to talk to their children at a young age when morals and beliefs are instilled in people’s minds. If we start educating children through things they like and trust, such as “Sesame Street” characters, stereotypical beliefs and myths associated with the lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS can be corrected. According to CNN.com, Republican lawmakers do not want to introduce an HIV-pos itive muppet to the show. A letter reportedly sent to PBS president Pat Mitchell by five members of the House com mittee on energy and com merce states that such a char acter would be unwelcome on American television. The law makers reported the average age of “Sesame Street” view ers is 2 to 4 years old, too young of an age to introduce such a controversial topic. There is still a large stigma surrounding AIDS in South Africa and the rest of the world. The creation of an HIV-positive character will help provide educators with resources to help combat the disease. Children are said to be the future, and we need to teach them at a young age when learning is imperative. The CDC reported 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS in the world today, and 2.7 million under the age of 15. U.S. officials should take this into consideration and allow children to be educated about AIDS at a young age through the trusted and famil iar characters on a longstand ing, educational children’s program such as “Sesame Street.” Jamie Duff is a senior English major. Wasteful Recreation Traditions and Miramont golf courses excessive for Bryan MAIL CALL Guns in the cockpit a necessity on flights ln response to Jonathan livens July 17 mail call: t *- et 's say you are sitting on f n a irplane about 10 rows ac k from the cockpit. u ddenly a group of terrorists attack. ,^ e terrorists take care of T 16 air marshal first. Not that ar d to spot. Then they kill the 'ght attendants. , The y then start breaking 0Wn the door to the cockpit 0W for the question. '° u want the pilots in that Coc kpit to have a gun? According to Mr. Havens the J^swer to this question would e no, because they should ^ entra te on flying. $ nat kind of person would a V no. The terrorist are break- 8 mto the cockpit. he Y have guns. Once they Do CHRISTY RUTH I n hopes of making Bryan-College Station a better place to live, the City of Bryan has teamed up with Texas A&M in a new proj ect, the Traditions Golf Course. Now, Bryan businessman Don Adams is following their lead and building another new golf course, the Miramont. While Traditions is coming along slowly, still tied up with preparing the utility infrastructure and other sorts of bureaucratic procedures, the Miramont is moving along swiftly, with a 22-hole course and a 93,000 square foot clubhouse already in the works. Both developments are seeking to attract vacationers and new residents by offering a unique country club lifestyle. While it might seem difficult to oppose a golf course, there are problems with the Traditions course and Miramont the community needs to realize. Since the Traditions project is a municipal venture and a uni versity venture, every taxpayer and A&M student is contributing to turning the community into one giant country club. Another problem to consider is the socioeconomic condition of Bryan. Many residents of Bryan are paying taxes for a golf course they will never use. Sure, if it attracts tourists it will help the economy, but relying heavily on tourism dollars to recoup expenses is a risky plan, especially since the project still has quite a way to go before it will be ready to service visitors. Bryan’s city council is still undergoing negotiations with the Melrose Corporation, which is carrying out construction of the Traditions course, and hotel construction is being delayed by kinks that still' need to be worked out with the course. Overall,-.^ this project is taking up a great deal of time and money, and is bogged down in bureaucratic processes. Another factor overlooked when filling a communi- ^ ty with state-of-the-art golf courses is the impact the 1 projects have on the environment. When land is cleared for a golf course, trees are cut down, sand is moved in, water is added in, and the overall topography of the land changes. These changes affect the entire ecosystem. Plants that once grew in the golf course area will not be there anymore, and the animals and insects that survive on that land will be forced out. Once this hap pens, the animals cannot come back and repopulate unfamiliar territory. The wildlife population will be completely out of sync with its natural balance. Unfortunately, the City of Bryan and Texas A&M do not consider these effects to be harmful enough to involve taxpayers in the decision to construct a large golf course while another is already in the making. Their desire to bring upscale patrons to the community steps on the toes of many people already living here. Certainly plenty of res idents in Bryan and College Station like to golf and will use the courses, but those who do not are being ignored. It seems the city has decided current residents are not the kind of people they want living there, so it will force them out by bring ing in rich golfers. LUKE CARNEVALE • THE BATTALION Obviously, there are worse things a city can do than build a golf course, but if the reasons for doing so are to attract tourists and affluent families to visit and live here, it could be investing the nec essary time and resources on better ventures. Christy Ruth is a senior journalism major. Clean Power Act doomed to fail get in there the pilots will be dead and that means that every person on the airplane will, one way or the other, be dead - and you do not want those pilots to be able to mount a last-ditch defense effort with guns. Know what? That U.S. Navy F-l 6 on your wing has guns- and those guns are going to kill you if those terrorists can not be stopped. Your only chance is for the pilots to save the day. But, you do not want them armed. Oh and by the way, the cur rent bill passed by the U.S. House (H.R. 4635) would pro vide any pilot training, super vision, and equipment neces sary as well as provide bullets that do not penetrate through the airplane in case of acci dental discharge. Stephen Latimer Class of 2002 (U-WIRE) HOUSTON — The Senate Environment and Public Works committee recently approved an amendment to the Clean Air Act by a 10-9 vote, a characteristically thin mar gin for such sweeping, extreme legislation. The Clean Power Act, authored and sponsored by the com mittee chairman. Independent Senator James Jeffors of Vermont, would impose the nation’s first controls on carbon dioxide, to the tune of 25 percent of current levels. These car bon dioxide controls are the bill’s centerpiece, though it would also curb three other pollutants: sulfur dioxide (which causes acid rain) by 95 percent, nitrous oxides by 85 percent, and mer cury by 90 percent by 2008. Max Baucus of Montana, a powerful Democratic dissenting vote, rebuked Jeffords for lack of compromise and predicts the costs of implementing these controls will be so high as to put many coal fired power plants out of commission. The mercury controls, for example, are impossible to meet. Jefford’s plan would cut mercury emissions from 41 tons per year to just five, and there would be no trading of emission per mits to mitigate fluctuations in demand for the right to emit. The electricity industry says current technology can decrease mercury by about 40 percent, but not to the levels required by this bill. Coal constitutes half of the country’s electricity, primarily because it is our cheapest energy source and its emissions have gotten progressively cleaner during the past hundred years. The Edison Electricity Institute points out existing control programs for sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions “will reduce tons of both emissions by half from their highest levels.” If a bill such as Jefford’s damages such a large and crucial portion of our energy producing capacity, then more expensive means of energy will need to fill the void, such as natural gas. California relies mostly on natural gas for electricity, and that dependency is what helped create the California energy crisis. It did not allow coal to provide a buffer from the volatility of the natural gas market, and this volatility ham mered California. The shock our electrical system would sus tain in attempting to change half of energy capacity to a differ ent source of fuel would only compound the volatility of gas prices and drive them up even further. As is the case of most environmental regulations, the poor would suffer the most under this bill. The well off will be less sensitive to price increases, while seniors receiving social secu rity will experience even more pressure on their already small, fixed income. Jefford’s plan has all the trappings of the Kyoto protocol: prohibitively large cost and GDP contraction, with little real result on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmos phere. A quarter of the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants are a small fraction of the total global emis sions of the compound. Cutting this amount will not delay a rise in global tempera ture, due to the sheer amount that the rest of America and the world emit. The developing world, namely China and India, have refused to partake in any such emission reduction scheme. While American industry struggles under the yoke of such oppressive regulation, China and India will continue to increase emissions, past current U.S. levels, making reductions in the bill even more ineffective. It is easy for Jeffords to sit atop his high platitudes and dic tate how the rest of the busy nation should fuel itself. Fortunately, the stark nature of Jefford’s legislation is perhaps its best quality, for the tight caps and cost thereof are so unrea sonable that this measure is assured not to garner any support from Senators whose states actually have work to do. Thomas Asma is a columnist for the Daily Cougar. Indecent proposal by church educator (U-WIRE) MURFREES BORO, Tenn. — Last month, 42-year-old Todd Warren, a Sunday school teacher in Minnesota, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of inde cent exposure after counseling a 16-year-old boy to repress his desire to masturbate by writing, “What Would Jesus Do?” on his penis. Yikes. Masturbation, along with anger, selfishness and other “sinful” emotions most religions claim pave the road to hell, is normal, healthy behavior. If the teenager had confessed that he excuses himself to the bathroom at least five times during family dinner to milk his marmot, per haps he would be justified in seeking religious help. But see ing the son of God’s name adorning his penis is going to do way more psychological damage than over-indulging on self-stimulation ever could. Once again, those four little words have proven to be noth ing more than a Christian mechanism to induce guilt for being human. If anything, self-love is a positive alternative to sex before marriage. If masturba tion is a sin and fornication is a sin, what is one to do with years of pent-up sexual energy? Why would an all-knowing, loving God design a species so inefficiently? The only logical conclusion, then, is that per sonal sexuality is a fabulous part of our design that should be embraced. Either way, Warren deserves to lose his counseling privi leges. The point of being a youth counselor should be to encourage young people to think for themselves, not to claim that a natural human instinct makes baby Jesus cry. Amber Bryant is a columnist for the Sidelines.
